The Bliss of Materialism

We have furniture.

This is news. I mean, we've had some furniture (mattresses, albeit sans bedframes), but we now have the cornerstone, the new hearth, the principium upon which suburban life is based. We have a couch. (What, you were expecting a TV? We did get that, too.) Or more properly, we have the loveseat-couch set. Or, in my pidgin Nederlands, het 2-zitsplatz-3-zitsplatz combi. Buttery ecru/yellow, leather or a convincing and adequately childproof equivalent. Thank god for Emmaus' used everything store, without which we'd still be camping out in a living room that more closely resembles a high school gym in preparations for the homecoming dance, what with the homemade decorations and chinese paper lantern globe lights (the installation of which prompted A. to observe, "Now everyone will think we're always having a party!"). I didn't like homecoming when I was in high school. Enough said.

After spending about two hours flirting with decorative disaster by moving the couches into all possible configurations over our paper-thin (read: cheapest in the store) linoleum that rips when a Lego hits it the wrong way, we set them down out of sheer fatigue and decided they look just fine where they are. We've now moved on to training D. that our new additions to the dance party decor are not, in fact, cushy trampolines, despite appearances. He and his buddy, Stripe the stuffed tiger, have had a few heart-to-hearts in the Thinking Spot today about the injustice of parental censorship of expression via bounce. He is deeply misunderstood.

Nonetheless, he and A. had a grand time this evening rocking out in the new digs. A. made good use of the new couches (and television) by making a new Dutch-speaking friend and inviting her to consume some tasty Sinterklaas kruidnoten whilst hanging out on the new couch. Rather than watching the newly-available Dutch channels, A. decided to try introducing her new buddy to some of the finest American culture has to offer the tween set -- Hannah Montana. That lasted about five minutes before the girls decided that perhaps digging moats in the playground sand was a better, er, bridge-builder. Three cheers for eight-year-olds' intrepid approach to interlingual communication.